The present technology relates to surgical devices for retracting anatomy to provide exposure to an operating site and to properly retain tissue surrounding a surgical incision. In surgical operations, it is particularly important that a patient's abdominal region be well exposed to facilitate work by a surgeon. To effect this desired exposure, surgical retractors are normally employed which engage and hold the skin apart at the incision during the course of the operation.
Most retractors comprise an arm connected to a blade. The blade can be of a variety of constructions including, for example, a paddle-like design or a finger-like configuration. The type of retractor blade used depends on a number of factors including, the size of the incision, the size of the patient and the type of surgery to be performed.
Oftentimes, a surgeon is required to change the type of retractor blade being used, during the course of an operation. To this end, a variety of interchangeable retractor blade systems have been proposed which allow for the blade to be quickly released from the retractor handle whereby one blade can be removed and another put in its place. This type of arrangement allows a single retractor arm to be used with a variety of blades. In addition, certain quick release retractor blades can swivel in place to compensate for inexact positioning of an arm.
Some known surgical retractors are described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,984,865 entitled “SURGICAL RETRACTOR HAVING LOCKING INTERCHANGEABLE BLADES”, which issued Nov. 16, 1999 to Farley et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,902,233 entitled “ANGLING SURGICAL RETRACTOR APPARATUS AND METHOD OF RETRACTINGANATOMY”, which issued May 11, 1999 to Farley et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 4,971,038 entitled “TABLE MOUNTED SURGICAL RETRACTOR”, which issued Nov. 29, 1990 to Farley, each of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.
It is desirable to provide improved surgical retractors with improved functionality, such as those described herein.